Berrisford, I think, would have tried (as he said) "to smooth it all over" at the police station, but very fortunately the arrival of the Regent and my adviser and the iron-gray man at once took the matter out of his hands. I don’t know what they did to the officers, but I was quickly transferred from the police station to the room of my adviser. It was more or less impossible to return the money that had been collected from the class to bail me out with, so just as I left a fellow with a loud voice proposed amid great cheering to give it to the Freshman Eleven. There had been something spectacular and brilliant about my progress from the Yard to the lock-up that, terrified though I was, I could not help appreciating in an abject, wretched sort of a way. But the silent walk down a back street to the hall in which my adviser lives was just common or garden melancholy. The sidewalk was broad, so we swung along four abreast. No one followed us, of course, and we went the entire distance in almost unbroken silence. Once the Regent cleared his throat and said in hard, cheerful, deliberate tones,— "I see by the evening paper that Japan will not accede to the request of the Powers." No one answered for about a minute, and I began to fear that neither my adviser nor the iron-gray man would take advantage of the opportunity to exclaim, "What a wonderful little people they are!" I was vaguely disappointed; for of course when the Japanese are mentioned one instinctively waits for somebody to say this. However, just as I was beginning to lose hope and had almost made up my mind to risk the comment myself, the iron-gray man burst out with, "What a remarkable little people they are!" and my foolish heart was reassured! I must say that when we reached our destination and the inquisition began, they were—all three of them—mighty fair and square. The circumstances of my capture were decidedly against me, and my defence, I realized, sounded simply foolish. (At one point my adviser jumped up abruptly and closed a window; I think he was afraid he was going to laugh.) There was nothing for me to do but tell my story: how I had watched the rush from the bottom of the steps; how I had gone over to hear Mr. Duggie’s speech, and how Berrisford (I didn’t give his name, however) had come up to me with the helmet in a newspaper and told me we were playing a game and that I was It. I felt very earnest and tremulous when I began, but by the time I finished I could n’t help wanting to shut a few windows myself. That—out of the whole howling mob—they had succeeded in seizing one miserable, little half-dead Freshman who had taken no part in the actual disturbance, struck me as being like something in an imbecile farce. It impressed the others, I think, in much the same way, although the iron-gray man, after a moment of silence, said: "Do you really expect us to believe all this?"